Okay, back from a one week getaway with the family that we do every year. Well, going on 3 years. Last year Villain was out, and July was the month when it took off. I'd look at the numbers for the sales at dinner time and freak out. I mean, this isn't the kind of book that should sell, much less sell well.
Last year I was also mid-Wayward and on a mission. I dedicated 5-7 hours a day and came home from the 5 day trip with over 100 pages of first draft stuff.
This year I blew it. I had plans, I had a bunch of started scenes that I planned to pickup...This was a 6 day trip, and I hoped to do at least as much as last year. I did fifteen pages. One Five. No excuse or particular reason, I'm just working on a different kind of story this year, and unlike 1 and 2, I don't have the end.
I work that way, with a final goal, mostly in chronological order, adding missing scenes later as they're needed. I have the ending, which for Villain was an rpg game I had run. For Wayward, I had the entire finale in my head, plotted out to the last detail. I knew what I wanted to do, and then it was just question of having the free time to sit down and do it.
Three is different. I don't know the ending. I mean, I have two ideas for the final act, but neither gets me hot and heavy. So I'm working with a fully plotted first act, a partially envisioned second, and no idea about the end. It's real important to do something different than what's expected, which would be a head to head throwdown with Epic, engineered by Mr. Haha. Hell, that's what I want, too, but how full of shit would that be? I mean, we saw them go at it already, what's Epic going to do? Learn some Brazilian Ju Jitsu?
It's different because I want to do it different. Different is what's worked with Blackjack until now. Know what would be more painful and real than that kind of perma-anymosity? Have them have to work together. Now that would suck, but it'd be awesome at the same time. THAT's what I'm looking for about the ending. I don't want to just have some crazy fight among the heroes, then everyone stops, looks up and sees the Lightbringer's New Army (tm) arriving on Earth to take us over...
...actually, that doesn't sound so bad.
Okay, two related pet peeves. Why do aliens always have to land in the United States? Specifically LA or NYC? If you see images of population distribution, they'd be much more interested in the area around India than in us. If I'm an alien general with even a slight bit of military knowledge, and the goal is to subjugate/destroy the population, I drop my ships there. It's mentioned in one of the funniest lines of Monsters vs. Aliens, but they keep sending their Chitauri to NYC as if that would settle the issue. Silly aliens.
But say they get wise, and instead of land in the US, they go after India or China, places where population density is nearly off the charts. They find a nice open field, land their dropships and muster the troops in nice even rows...THEN GET OBLITERATED. I hate that movies totally disregard our conventional military save for an F-22 flyby so it can fire an AIR TO AIR missile into the huge Kaiju or alien dropship, only to get crushed 30 seconds later. I loved Pacific Rim, but those Kaiju would last 30 seconds against a flight of AC-130H Spectres. I have a cousin that flew those suckers, their 105s have a range in KILOMETERS. The Kaiju might not ever actually see the planes hurling 105mm shells into it's chest cavity, sending it back to Hell.
Then there's the B-52. We have dozens of them in our inventory and they can drop 20,000+ lbs of bombs, cruise missiles and anything else we can think of. Imagine a flight of those coming overhead as the alien army is forming up. Ground beef, that's what you'd get.
I know, they had some reasons for them being unwilling to fight the Kaiju with conventional weapons, namely their blood, and the Chitauri in Avengers came by surprise, overwhelming everything that was available at the time. I imagine that amazing final sequence of the Avengers must've taken place over the course of an hour at the most, little time for any reasonable response. But it drives me nuts when they do that. I'm a huge fan of mecha since my father got me a Mazinger Z 3 foot tall figure when I was eight. I mean, I wrote mecha in both books and I had my whole clan frothing at the mouth, waiting to see Pacific Rim...but some of these things tend to add up.
I'm ranting, I know, but this stuff pisses me off. They never do it right. They've either got no time cause it's a movie, or don't spend the effort to make things more realistic. In stories like Fallen Skies, V and others, it's up to a small band of "the resistance" to do what billions of dollars in conventional weapons cannot. Why is it always up to F-22 air to air missiles, and not everything else that we have in our arsenal (I'M TALKING TO YOU MICHAEL BAY). Hell, if you were to believe the Transformers movies, our army only has M-16s or the odd Bradley. Do people know that Bradleys can fire 30mm depleted uranium shells? So does the A-10 with it's Avenger cannon. Imagine Megatron getting a belly full of lead from a flight of A-10s. Or pegged by SABOT rounds by a column M1A2 Abrams tanks?
That's what bothers me. I know why they do it, whether plotwise, or because that's the story they've chosen to tell, but to me our military is something wholesome and honorable, in particular the soldiers of all ranks that risk everything for us, and I hate that they're thrown aside as incompetent for the purpose of a plotline. When are we going to see a book or movie that takes their effort and work seriously, without over-glorifying or drowning it in bullshit?
Maybe in Blackjack three, though I'm not sure how exactly. I think it's going to be an invasion, sure, but after that I'm at a loss.
How about this: Blackjack, Apogee, SuperD...the whole bunch of them...come in hard and fast to stop the alien landing. You figure they'd be able to respond much faster than any military unit in the world, right? The author gave SuperD a plane that's as fast as plot needs it to be :) Anyway, they come in and they get CREAMED
How about that? What if we have to rely on the boys and girls in fatigues to fight this one for us? What if the supers are more of a distraction than anything...maybe going for the leadership, for the Lightbringers themselves?
Hell, I think I have my final act, after all.
And if you're wondering what I think about them:
Pacific Rim 9/10
Avengers 10/10
Transformers series 3/10
Falling Skies 4/10
V 7/10
A-10 Warthog II 100/10 :)
